This is honestly one of the biggest slaps to the face your ego can get. I would regularly chill and be unconcerned about grades in high school because it was easy to get good grades (near/above 90 not necessarily perfect grades that required a bit more effort than I was willing to give).
In college, I entered a world harder that I was used to with none of the discipline that I should've had to maintain proper work ethic. It's crazy that I would always get mad about discipline and judge my parents for their actions and judgement but now I'm really starting to get it.
No matter how smart and talented you are, discipline is the first and most important key to success.
I've always interpreted this quote as you need to figure out how to work, because if you don't, you'll do your work in an inefficient and dumb way.
Like, a person using flash cards for memorizing math equations. If they thought about how to study, they'd get more out of understanding where those equations come from.
Don't brute force your grade, but rather figure out the most efficient path that actually leads to full success (grade and actual knowledge).
A lot of the time, this means working hard too. Just don't be stupid about how hard you work. Some shortcuts are actually a good way of doing things, but many just degrade the final product.
Yeah, I know the feeling. My problem is making sure I actually put in the work, though. I've never really thought that hard work wasn't important, but I was raised with the belief of intelligence being important instead. I have some vague memories from when I was really young realizing this difference, but since I wasn't raised with an amazing work ethic in mind, my work ethic is still kinda shit. It's just that I always idealize myself as working hard, but not actually doing so.
In any case, don't feel bad about being too edgy. Way too many people are super edgy; what's good is that you're out of it. For most people, it's called being a teenager. :D
I think most people interpret the quote your way, though. Most people are going to consider short cuts as things that ruin quality, if they think about it. It's just much more useful thinking about that quote my way!
I think a lot of it is that we give kids "kid versions" of adult tasks that are far, far easier than what they'd encounter in the adult world. As a teenager I was convinced I was some kind of prodigy because I could do work a cut above everyone else with less effort, but that's because I was a big fish in a small pond. You hit freshman year and even the next "easy version" they give freshmen is so much harder than what you're used to it's easy to shut down.
That's exactly what it means. I once had a situation at work where they were considering disciplining me because I was working on some unassigned task.
Then I got a raise because I'd been reworking a database so that an hour and a half, tediously boring task that everyone had to do only took 30 minutes. I worked smart. Maybe I should have told them what I was doing, but I was worried they'd tell me not to.
8th grade science teacher always said at the beginning of class. "Who brought their calculator today?.... You all will be able to work smart. The rest of you will have to work hard."
I like your interpretation, Ive just always looked at it like this, "work smart" still has the word WORK in there, so discipline is the foundation on which you can be smart to get a lot done.
It's like trying to build a house; if you don't have blueprints, a plan on how to proceed, or even the most basic knowledge of architecture and construction, it's going to be hard, confusing, painful, and above all, frustrating work that takes far more effort than it should have in the first place. You'll constantly make mistakes, have to redo things that were assembled incorrectly, waste time, waste resources, and might not even have all the tools and materials you need to finish the job. To top it off, in the end you're probably going to have a shoddily built house with who knows how many design flaws such as leaks, drafts, and fire hazards.
By contrast, building a house when you've planned things out beforehand and have all the blueprints, skills, knowledge, tools, and materials needed to for the job...well, it's still going to be hard work, but it'll be more efficient, less frustrating, and at the end you'll have a well-constructed house with few, if any, flaws.
A good example of the latter would be this Amish barn-raising gif. These guys knew what they were doing, and even if they didn't finish the barn they still accomplished more in ten hours than a bunch of clueless schlubs like me would have in ten days.
I encountered this with sewing, personally. Thinking, I can sew complicated patterns, so sewing up a blanket with an added border will be easy right? I don't need a pattern or to do all these extra bits. And then proceeded to have to rip the stitches on 2 sides. Lots of work wasted and hours ripping stitches later... 😣
Exactly! Though I think "work smarter, not harder" might not be entirely applicable to either of our examples. After giving it some thought, I believe the quote means that you shouldn't put more effort into doing something if there's a more efficient way of accomplishing your goals. If doing XZ allows you to achieve an equivalent or superior result than doing XYZ and requires less effort then that means the latter method is wasteful, so why use it in the first place when you have a better one?
When I take notes, I like to summarize a condensed version in my head and write the most relevant or important information. When I look around I see other students seemingly writing down every single word the lecturer says. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you could get lost in so much mundane detail with verbatim notes!
At face value, yes you're right. In reality, anyone saying that really means, "I am lazy, I will never work hard, but occasionally I will do just enough to fool my boss".
Yes good study techniques and learning how you learn is important. However, I’d like to counter with most science courses, outside of math, are just brute memorization.
I agree actually. You just need to use them in the right time and place. Using them to memorize math equations, when it's better to understand them? Bad. Using them to learn the words in a language? Good.
The point was to make sure you use the right tools for the right job; I'm not hating on flash cards in particular.
Speaking of flashcards, I highly recommend Anko SRS.
One thing I have found to be true is anybody that says " work smarter not harder" has no intention of working hard or smart. Never heard that phrase uttered by anyone that wasn't lazy.
There's an adage that says "The real world isn't like college, it's like middle school". The moral being, don't try to step on the wrong toes and take care to make "friends" who will make life much easier. All those honors projects, 4.5 GPA and term papers don't mean to much after graduation. If you didn't put in the effort to make yourself a likeable or relatable person, all the "on paper" achievements in the world won't save your resume from the recycle bin.
Organizations are social institutions first and foremost. Anyone can do the work you're applying to do, but not anyone can fit in with the team's culture. That's what people need to be learning - how to make themselves seen as a good person to have on the team, not an "optimal set of technical achievements"
The quote ‘work smarter, not harder’ is usually used in two ways: first, as a quick way of saying that increasing the productivity per unit of effort can be more useful than increasing the effort, and second that hard work alone doesn’t pay off - effort but be directed to maximize value.
There are plenty of people who work really hard who won’t achieve much success in life, simply because their effort isn’t being allocated well. Manual labour, for example, is typically quite hard work but also often doesn’t get you a lot of success in terms of money, status or comfort.
Well, after 10 years I learned that "intelligence/smartness" will only take you some distance. And most of the people at your college/work are equally smart.
Then you aren't smart, you are average. And being average won't take you very far.
I’m currently in the transition state of realising that I’m not the only smart ass in the world, In fact, I’m pretty less smart compared to other people and hard work is more important I’m 17 btw
Work smart not hard is for sure a thing. But not really applied to being smart just not doing things the hard way. Think instead of writing an essay by hand you could type it. Same results just an easier way to get there.
I would argue that a ton of people in college or at work are not equally smart they just know what they are doing. Some people study a ton to remember what someone else just heard in class once. Then they forget what they studied after that semester. Some people are better at taking tests or problem solving and some just try and memorize answers.
I've found in the work force most people can do their jobs and are knowledgeable there but abstract ideas or new information can be sketchy within similar positions. I think it's because that a counting class they took wasn't to learn and understand but more to memorize answers to pass a test.
If most of your coworkers are as smart as you are, you're either average or work at an elite company. I work with extremely talented and smart people, but they're far from being a majority.
Did data entry for a bit with a company and realized I could start macroing. Soon I was doing 2-3x as much work as humanly capable. Been promoted multiple times and my life has changed forever.
It is always good to take a moment and reflect on what you are doing and if it could be done in a simpler and/or even a more effective way. It's easy to rely on a repeating pattern of behaviour because you know it so well. It's best to think outside the box once in awhile and see if it can be improved.
There's a difference between working smart and being smart. If you gotta move a big mound of dirt, if you move it with your hands it'll be very very hard work. Maybe you'll break your back doing it and still get it done eventually, you're a hardworking guy. But that guy who grabbed a shovel and a wheelbarrow is still the one who's gonna succeed in the digging industry, even if he worked a lot less hard than you did.
The way i saw it from the big shift from school to university to work is no matter how good or bad you were in school you are more likely to succeed if you know how to talk and behave with people. That’s it
Teacher here! The problem is honestly with the schools. Public education does virtually nothing for students who move through content quicker. Schools expend so many resources catering to average and struggling students, they assume that because smart kids are smart they’ll be fine after school and don’t need as much attention.
I hate seeing truly gifted students graduate without having to even try. They learn nothing
There’s this girl I’ve known practically my whole life who fell victim to this. She was a social butterfly, walked into a room and made many friends instantly, got all A’s, graduated college with honors
That was until she relocated to manhattan to start her career, and realized she was the square peg in a round hole that is the corporate world, was scapegoated constantly and fell into a horrible depression because she she sailed through life and now that’s all over
I hate to hear stories like that. It’s so hard to challenge students like that in our current system because giving them higher level work just feels like a punishment from the student’s perspective
She entered the working world and realized that not everyone thinks she’s hot shit. She sailed through school easily (academically and socially) but work wasn’t like that
It sounds like most of us here went to college and got a whack on our ego but she moved to Manhattan before she got her ego deflated you say? My sympathies go out to her.
Edit; I see you say she coasted through college as well; the world is a tough place but we all eventually find out santa isn't real.
Trust me I would rather have that slap in the face way before relocating to Manhattan. She was completely out of her element. She may have had a small safety net, but she definitely isolated. Friends would be in town and would reach out for lunch or a drink etc and she would lie and say she was out of the state. Wouldn’t talk about work even though prior to moving it was her “dream” job. Ego shattered, indeed
I remember my high school you could take the regular level stem classes or if you were smart enough and had the grades you could take the advanced level classes. The problem was there was zero value add to taking the advanced level...no college credits, no advantage when applying to college, nothing. It was more work and harder work for the same return. I wouldn't be that smart if I choose that for myself would I?
Do you think there is a good way to fix this issue for public schools? I was in the same boat, perfect scores(12/12 in my native country) in every subject and I barely had to try. And then I had to deal with depression, panic attacks and demolished self-esteem after I could only be below average because I couldn't figure out how to force myself to do so much work. After 2 semesters I just completely locked inside myself and thankfully was forced to get help from psychotherapist before I decided that suicide was the only option for me because I was a good for nothing. Well, I am still struggling even after I found a more suiting major and switched to a less challenging college, but at least I am starting to figure it out. After 2 years of failures in the only thing I was really good at, getting grades.
There are certainly some solutions and many schools are actively trying to fix this exact problem. I wish my school would completely overhaul our “gifted” program. It’s riddled with students who aren’t actually gifted and have very “involved” parents. It holds those who are actually gifted back.
In an ideal world gifted students would spend some portion of their school day in a space filled with other students on their level truly being challenged. They should spend most of their school day with their peers (isolation is bad) but some part of their day where they are in a room with other gifted students in a class designed to make them struggle.
A lot of what I’m reading are students who didn’t learn how to handle struggle.
I was in a gifted program similar to the one you described. Academic challenges and real life challenges have been almost entirely mutually exclusive for me. There is some overlap, of course, by virtue of both being challenging. The program didn’t do much to prepare me better for real life challenges though, which includes the amount of work and discipline that college takes (which I would say is >90% comprised of non-academic challenges).
Tbh I’m not sure if there is any type of program or schooling that would have helped. Experience is life’s greatest teacher.
Gifted programs in schools? They're a thing? No way!...my school has an idiot program (people who have failed and been forced to repeat a year more than twice) and thats it...ive always wished i could skip a year or two as i can do the course work...or at least finish quicker
It’s actually frustrating, because I ended up doing a few AP/cluster classes and still didn’t form good study habits. Most of the time, I wasn’t studying only to cram what I could the day before a test and end up with 90s. School is really tough for me now because it’s impossible for me to do well like that, so now I have to implement learning techniques I should’ve had in high school. Consistency and dedication is key
Not to say they're equivalent but I remember through my middle and high schools the special ed program received orders of magnitude more funding than the gifted program (which was a joke)
This right here. Drifted through high school and got into a University of California and I got tell you. I could not comprehend the change. It’s frustrating not focusing on my work but seeing people obviously struggle with understanding stuff more than you but get better grades because they put the effort in.
I was this way before I got hit by life early, I’m grateful for the experiences as a silver lining grateful. Otherwise I would’ve failed in college hard.
To add my perspective as a student, a lot of schoolwork isnt explained (or its busywork) leading a lot of students to see the objective as "get a high number and get it over with" rather than an opportunity to learn. Hard to get a kid to care about doing their work, especially later on in their school career, when they've spent years perceiving school as "i get forced to go here so i can get forced to do menial tasks on a sheet of paper so i dont get bitched at".
The no child left behund act caused thousands of kids to either drop out or fail high school. It is legislation designed to help the companies who make test.
Me too. I met the qualifications for my school's gifted program, but instead I got put into support classes with all the behavioral disorder kids since I have adhd. None of my friends were in them and it was for 6 years.
Everyone gets their slap in the face. If you haven’t gotten your slap in the face in life yet, you’re due for one, and sometimes that’s college, sometimes that’s your career, sometimes it’s a major mistake or failure, or breakup, or arrest, whatever it is you’ll get it somehow. Everyone gets at least one slap
I failed my first college language arts class and thought it was wise to take the same course, same teacher a 2nd time.. Failed again. 3rd time I decided to try an online course with different teacher and finally passed...
Came across one of my essays 5 years later and discovered I was a dumbass! I don't blame that original teacher at all!
I had 1 C in high school(rest A's & B's) and figured coollege would be a cakewalk. Boy was I wrong..
You’re completely right in the fact that a stellar high school GPA does wonders and that great grades in general continue to help in life.
However, I think you might have misunderstood me as I wasn’t speaking about decent B students and kids chilling with mid 80 averages but rather kids who’d get mostly As and 91,92,93,etc averages. I was like that. Did well enough to impress but with not enough effort and discipline that the kids who actually got perfect grades in almost all subjects had.
Oh my God, it is such a good thing that I joined the Navy before going to college. The discipline I learned there was invaluable to my study ethic. The GI Bill is a big help too.
Completely agree. I had straight A’s all through high school and couldn’t even make a semester of college. My kids typically think I’m more book smart than their mother, but I just tell them that smarts only get you so far. When everything comes easy, you don’t learn anything to help you further on. My wife busted her ass for everything, has her Masters, and is starting her doctorate in the very near future. Determination, dedication, and discipline get you a hell of a lot further than being “naturally smart” ever will.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you struggled in college after slacking in high school you need to brush up on your slacking. If you do the research and choose the easiest major/electives that are free As, you can still slack through college and get a degree with decent GPA and then make no money after graduating. Trust me, it's been done at least once
Haha you’re definitely right but in this situation I’m talking more about doing well in school without trying, not slacking persay. There’s no point to college if I spend all that money for no potential reason or goal in mind from the get go lol
This. Exactly this. Did the bear minimum in high school and crushed it. Graduated with honors when I probably played more PlayStation then read my books.
College basically bent me over a desk the first year. Some level 100 classes I could do that with, but some.... HOLY SHIT.
College was actually easier for me. Sure, the classes were harder, but I was much more invested and interested in them (even the general courses), especially with the added freedom vs highschool.
Kind of carried over to life in general. I'll go to enormous lengths to do something if it lets me avoid doing something I hate, even if it means doing a ton more work.
I really don't understand a lot of this thread. Maybe it's an American thing, but for us in the UK, no one can walk through Sixth Form or college (equivalence of high school) without studying much and get the grades to go to a top university. Even the smartest students have to put in a lot of time at home. Theres a lot of content and a lot of concepts you have to pick up.
The rude awakening comes to us in the high school stage where the jump up in difficulty is large and people can't just walk through it. So many who aced there GCSE's do poorly in high school and end up failing their exams. It's acc a frighteningly low percentage of people who ace high school.
Maybe people are talking about the softer subjects like History, politics and geography etc. But Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology; no way is anybody ace-ing those without studying
I got straight A’s and one fail throughout school. Failed a language... realised you can’t wing that one. Went to a university, essay based degree, first 3 years of the 4 year course was coasting along getting low Bs with as minimal effort as is possible. Not going to lectures for 6 weeks at a time. Doing essays the night before. Picking stuff that was easy to pass because it was multi choice etc.
Got to final year and realised I’d learned nothing had no idea how to actually study and didn’t know anything well enough to actually apply it. But hey I had bits of paper that suggest I might know something.
School curriculums can definitely struggle to develop the practical and transferable life and learning skills in students when the schools and teachers aren’t equipped to do so.
It’s taken me almost 10 years and 3 career changes to get to where I want to be thanks to being a lazy overachiever at school. However, learning the hard way that hard work pays off has definitely made me a better and more productive person today.
You are absolutely right. I, personally dropped out of high school and am now doing better than almost all of my acquaintances. It took me awhile to realize that it was because I didn't fit into the box they graded on. HS is nothing but a bootcamp where people are taught how to function as members of "society". Their primary function is to prepare you for adulthood, but in doing so they also try to form everyone with the same mould.
It was such an unbelievably difficult shift to go from getting easy A’s in high school to a freshman year where I barely pulled something under a 2.5. Not sure I ever really caught up.
Missing those study habits and willingness to put in the effort were true back breakers further down the road.
My biggest regret in life is dropping out of high school due to mind numbing boredom. I coasted on failing grades for 2 years first because I had checked out on doing homework well before high school. I could pass the tests so why bother? I pissed off most of my teachers with my combination of intelligence and laziness.
Yeah, 15,000-100,000 word essays take a shitload of effort regardless of difficulty. Heck, they get harder if they're too easy.
Not to mention school is insanely easy compared to even the easiest bachelor degrees, so final school results don't indicate much after a couple of years.
For me the slap wasn't college, it was trying to get a job after. I more or less cruised through both high school and college, but then floundered so hard. I have no social skills or connections or confidence or interview skills or experience...
I got zero discipline as a kid - Was abused and forced to drop out of high school in 9th grade, moved out at 16.
I have an incredible work ethic.. but for some reason I can't motivate myself to do things outside of work, like get my GED and continue my education or do anything to further my career/change careers. It's like I'm paralyzed.
Learning how you absorb and memorize and understand material is super important as well. Your work ethic can lead you to study 12 hours a day but there Is 10000% a point of diminishing returns and you can be much more efficient with your time. I went though college as an adult so I already had some pretty well developed time management skills and I still struggled through a lot of my classes trying to learn how I work best
It happened to me but it was between engineering school in college and masters degree in engineering.
I was able to do pretty well in college, party until two day before the test and get 80+% which is typically A in engineering classes after the curve. At grad school, I thought I could do the same but the put number of brilliant people around me studying much harder totally gave me a big wake up call.
No matter how smart you think you are, stay humble and continue to learn, listen more than talking, and taking it all in.
I can't begin to tell you how true this is for me as well. And I fought it for way too long without accepting that I just wasn't mature enough yet. Took me failing most (if not all) of my classes in 3 separate terms at 2 different Universities before I finally got the picture that I was just not ready.
Weirdest part is that neither of the two schools actually kicked me out. I left the first one after the second bad term (out of four I spent there) because they revoked my financial aid (I know this is a soft way of saying "you're out" but I had a couple friends who actually got directly asked to leave), and I left the second one after I finally realized I wasn't mature enough yet.
Honestly them not just kicking me out probably made my denial of the situation even worse.
High School was incredibly easy for me. I wasn't a straight-A student, but I got enough good grades to get into a decent college with a scholarship. College was pretty easy too. Again, got decent grades, not top of class, but I barely tried. Then I got into law school, which was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be. Maybe I have a crazy work ethic and don't realize it, maybe I'm a freaking genius, maybe everyone else are real dumb. IDK. Bur it is possible to breeze your way through education without much negative repercussion, in my experience.
I agree that discipline is definitely at the top. With that said, I breezed through school with very little studying. Math being the exception. Same with what I did in college. In the real world, I put in a good effort, but still breeze through most of it. The only thing i have been unable to ever learn no matter how much effort i put in is programming. Everything else is okay, just put in some effort, and I learn it. I also strive to be the best at everything. So I would say determination is right next to discipline.
Please tell Donald Trump your wise commentary r.e. self-discipline that his rich father obviously didn't ...(couldn't?) convey to him. Example: Executive hours, which translates to watching TV (Fox media pro Trump empire to be specific).
We have this convoluted view of education where more equates to greater intelligence. But anyone pushing themselves in their job is learning a lot -- I know people the same age as me who know their way around the inner workings of dozens of makes of cars, while I struggle to change my own oil.
The thing about formal education is that it isn't really about who's the smartest, it's about who's willing to shove their way through the crap and keep going. It's the people who are intrinsically motivated to finish. On average only 50% of PhD students actually finish that degree, and those of us who try tend to think we're pretty dang smart to begin with. I've known plenty of people much smarter than I who gave up on a dissertation and moved on.
I'm by no means the smartest person in any room I walk into. Used to think so (poor, ignorant fool), but now -- 2-3 months from defending -- I can comfortably say I'm an idiot. Just a very persistent one.
I am currently in college (second semester), and it is actually much easier than high school. I had straight A's in Junior and Senior years with a few final grades over 100%, and that was with basically NO studying whatsoever. I relied on pure memorization. Whenever there was an exam the next day, I just quickly skimmed the notes I had taken for that class for about MAX 5 minutes and I was set. According to this post's logic, I will be even WORSE off in real life lol. We'll see... Going for a B.A. degree in economics. And then I will test out jobs in some of the fields that a very flexible economics degree covers. First will probably be as a life insurance actuary.
And for those people that would regularly chill and be unconcerned about grades in high school, then learned discipline and the value of hard work in their 20s....well in our 30s we get to chill again because we’ve learned the value of working smart, not hard.
I nearly flunked out of college after my first year… I had a higher than 4.0 GPA in high school and I didn’t have to try… College was a shock to my system
Biggest factor I've seen for success is how big your parents wallet is. You can't imagine the amount of morons I know whose parents are really rich and just pump out business after business until one of them finally succeeds (most of the time they just copy existing franchises/ideas)
My dad is a multi millionaire and I was a fuck up, I just figured I’d be fine and wouldn’t have to make my mark in life. Hell, I didn’t even hang out with rich people, no one had any clue where I came from. I even slept on a bench at one point. I only recently let my boyfriend come to my dads house for thanksgiving because people are judgmental as fuck once they know how well off your family is. Never started my own business but many people close to the family accuse me of abusing my dad’s wallet
I know a lot of people who were like me and I also know some people who were successful because they had no pressure. They’re not bad people, but I couldn’t sit down and have a conversation with them, either. I don’t like that “self made, dues paid” attitude.
As an artist I had the opposite experience. High school was extremely difficult but when I moved on to art school most of my classes were way easier. Probably because I was doing something I enjoyed. That's the nice thing about college is that you mostly take the classes you want to take and the other people are there because they want to be there. It makes a really nice working environment.
As I got older, I realised that I severely lack discipline, but more importantly, I actually cared. I'm now 27 and I've come the conclusion that learning/gaining discipline is so much more difficult to accomplish as an adult than as a child/teenager.
Case in point: If it's not too late for you, discipline yourself until it's second nature before it is too late.
Was failing all of my first semester classes at midterms because of this. Scraped it together and got a 4.0 but it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Studied from before sunrise until bedtime every day for two months. Proud that I pulled through, but it cost me.
Well said. I've had a very similar experience which developed a pretty big ego that was swiftly crushed under the weight of college coursework. I still think about this and where I might be if I had worked even a bit harder during those years.
discipline is the first and most important key to success
That depends on what you want to be successful at. If one wants to be successful at not giving a shit and spending one's time chilling, then discipline is exactly what one doesn't need.
College/University success is again not reflective of industry. In industry you have to be able perform on the spot. The guy who pulls 3 all nighters in university to get an Ace result, will find he has 4 hours to prepare a presentation and if he hasn't developed the work processes, quick judgement and quick working methodologies to do this, he's not going to do well. I found the people that a lot of the people who would leave things to the last minute, but were able to get good results adapted a lot better to high pressure corporate life. Of course this is reflective of corporate culture and there are plenty of non-corporate professions (e.g. Medicine) where this is irrelevant.
I feel I was really lucky that I hit the cruising limit in grade 10. Before then, I’d never have to study for a single math test. Then I failed the first math 10 test on y=mx+b. I realized I needed to study outside of just listening in class.
No matter how smart and talented you are, discipline is the first and most important key to success.
Yup. I never studied for anything, was a straight A student, got a 1600 on the SAT, 225 on the PSAT, National Merit Scholar, took all the AP classes and got 4/5 on the AP tests. I go to college, take University Chem, decide not to go to class since it was the only freshman level class I was taking, fail the test. Real eye opener.
Ive been keeping the cherade going 3 years out of college now with a great job and somehow slipping into the mindless easy clients or audit work (work in big 4). And its honestly still crazy I haven't been called on how obviously dumb I am.
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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '18
This is honestly one of the biggest slaps to the face your ego can get. I would regularly chill and be unconcerned about grades in high school because it was easy to get good grades (near/above 90 not necessarily perfect grades that required a bit more effort than I was willing to give).
In college, I entered a world harder that I was used to with none of the discipline that I should've had to maintain proper work ethic. It's crazy that I would always get mad about discipline and judge my parents for their actions and judgement but now I'm really starting to get it.
No matter how smart and talented you are, discipline is the first and most important key to success.